Pick Six for the Week Ahead

Mar. 21, 2014

Members of the Australian Chamber Orchestra

Diadie Bathily

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It’s a big week for small ensembles in Ames. First, the Australian Chamber Orchestra plays a feisty Russian program (Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich) at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Stephens Auditorium. $36-$42 for adults, $15 for youth; www.center.iastate.edu. Later, cellist David Finckel and his wife, pianist Wu Han, team up for more Russian work (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Scriabin) at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Iowa State University Music Building. $25 for adults, free for students; www.amestownandgown.org

“Summer of ’69” singer Bryan Adams strips down for his Bare Bones acoustic tour, performing at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Hoyt Sherman Place. It will be just Adams and a guitar for songs like “Cuts Like a Knife,” “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman” and “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You.” $33-$78. www.hoytsherman.org

So you think you can dance? We’ll see about that on Friday, when the award-winning dancer Diadié Bathily of the Ivory Coast offers a free lecture and workshop about West African dance at 12:15 p.m. at Drake University’s Harmon Fine Arts Center. www.drake.edu. For a different trip to the tropics, see the Polynesian Paradise Dancers swivel their hips at 7 p.m. that same day at Vaudeville Mews. $10, all ages. www.vaudevillemews.com

This month’s stubborn cold spell might explain why the Christian rock Winter Jam tour is coming to Des Moines during the first full week of spring. The lineup includes Newsboys, Lecrae, Tenth Avenue North, Thousand Foot Krutch, Plumb and others. Doors open at 6 p.m. Friday at Wells Fargo Arena. $10, available only at the door. www.jamtour.com

And speaking of that long winter, Ankeny Community Theatre opens “A Bad Year for Tomatoes” this Friday. The comedy about an actress who leaves Hollywood for a quiet town in New England begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through April 13. $15 for adults, $12 for seniors, $10 for kids. www.ankenycommunitytheatre.com

E.B. White’s classic book “Stuart Little,” about a mild-mannered mouse born into a human family in New York, gets a staging at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Des Moines Civic Center. It’s produced by the touring Dallas Children’s Theater Company, which, despite the rumors, does not pay its actors in cheese. $12. www.desmoinesperformingarts.org